Twice in a Blue Moon (19 page)

Not in and of itself, anyway.

* * *

T
HAT
EVENING
,
SHE
PUSHED
the loan conflict from the edge of her mind as Danovan drove. She hoped this place was as funky as Sam from yoga class had advertised. “I can't wait. Do you know how long it's been since I had pizza?”

He shot her a look. “Given what I've seen of your eating habits...last week?”

She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “That's a low blow. You've only seen my slips. All the meals you don't see me eat are healthy.”

She felt his glance from her scarf-tied ponytail to her ankle boots.

“I'm not being critical. You were a wraith when I first met you. If cotton candy and corn dogs brought you back to a healthy weight, I'm glad.”

She ran a hand down her side, feeling for bones. Her clothes had stopped hanging off her a while ago. Between the runs and the yoga, she felt fit and healthy. Could she be recovering from the funk that had begun with Harry's death? Maybe.

A blade of regret pricked her heart.

“Hey.” Danovan's large hand covered hers, though his eyes didn't leave the road. “It's okay to feel better, you know.”

She started, spooked that he'd read her thoughts. “How do you...”
Esperanza.
He knows because he's felt the same.
“Sorry. You're right, of course.”

He gave her hand a squeeze.

“Here, turn here,” she said.

He wheeled the Range Rover into the parking lot of a strip mall. “Oh, God, tell me we're not going to Chuck E. Cheese's. Kids on sugar-crack give me a headache.”

“I don't know, I mean, we could crash a kid's birthday party for the free cake.” She scanned the storefronts then pointed. “There it is.”

He pulled into a parking space at the end of the building. They stepped out and headed toward the last unit, boasting a sign that read Yukon Pizza.

“What does pizza have to do with Alaska?” He held the door open for her.

“Got me. I've never been here.” She walked into a wall of warm air laced with the smells of yeast and spices. Voices and laughter overrode the jukebox she could barely see in the dim recesses, blaring “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

Ahead stood a serving counter with a perky blonde teen behind it. The restaurant continued to the left and back, with small, plastic gingham-tablecloth-covered tables littering the sawdust-covered plank floor.

The decor left no doubt as to the theme. Cross-country skis hung from the ceiling, framed mountain landscape posters adorned the wall and mining lanterns hung from wooden ceiling beams, providing dim yellow light. Indigo's attention was pulled everywhere at once—a flag of Alaska spread across the ceiling in one corner, a kayak propped in another, and in the very back, she could barely see... “Is that a stuffed polar bear?”

“Yeah.” The girl behind the counter said, “I think the owners ran out of room in their house for all their crap.”

Danovan pointed to the wall where a foot-long trout sporting a mink cuff was mounted on a plaque. The placard said that the Arctic Trout grew fur in the winter, causing problems in the spring when the rivers got stopped up with all that shed hair.

She laughed. “Reminds me of the Jackalopes I saw in an Arizona tourist trap once. A jackrabbit with pronged horns coming out of its head.”

After they'd ordered their Roadkill Pizza, the girl handed Danovan two mugs—his beer, her soda—and she passed Indigo a plastic basket of unshelled peanuts. Danovan led the way to a relatively quiet corner and they sat.

He scanned the memorabilia on the walls. “You know, this place is kind of like Chuck E. Cheese's for adults.”

“Yep. So, how much money would we need?” She blurted the question she'd thought about all afternoon onto the table.

Startled hopefulness broke over his face. “You're actually thinking about my proposal?”

“Not really.” She shelled a peanut for something to do with her hands. “Well, thinking, maybe.” She tossed the hull on the floor and raised a finger. “But that's light-years from
doing
, okay?”

“Of course.” The corners of his mouth lowered, but that didn't wipe away the hopefulness.

“What would we need to buy?”

He grabbed a napkin. “Do you have a pen?”

She pulled one from her purse and handed it over.

“I have the exact figures in my office, but I can rough it out. First we'd need grapes. I have a grower in Napa who I've bought from in the past. He has consistent, excellent quality. Adding the market price and shipping—” He jotted a figure. “Then we'd need more fermentation tanks, barrels, bottles—” He wrote another figure. “Add the warehouse labor—” He made a line and tallied, then slid the napkin across to her.

The total was two zeroes more than the balance of her personal account. And though the winery was in the black, the cash flow had yet to catch up. The salty taste of worry mixed with the peanut she'd swallowed. “This adds risk. What's wrong with waiting and letting the winery fund its own growth?”

“Providing we sell out the additional wine we produce, the payout on the entire loan is seven years.”

“So the risk is—”

“Negligible.” He spread his hands, palm up. “Because you have me.” He flashed her a car salesman's smile.

She shook her head and grabbed another peanut.
Why are the handsome ones always arrogant?

“I'm kidding.” He dropped the smile and lowered his forearms onto the table. “Well, at least half kidding. You're new to the industry, so you don't know my reputation. Whatever else the Boldens would say about me, I am an excellent winemaker.” He looked her in the eye. “It's not bragging if it's fact. Wine I make will sell out. You can take that to the bank.”

That's exactly what you're asking me to do.
The only thing Danovan stood to lose was a ten percent share of nonexistent profits. When it came to debt, the “we” shifted to “me.”

And “me” doesn't make good decisions.

She held his gaze, studying.
But he does.
Danovan had done everything he'd promised. He'd taught her the basics of the business, the terminology, how to tend the vines. His guiding hands touched every aspect of The Tippling Widow.

And they were now in the black.

“I'll tell you what. I'll go and talk to a lender.” The bitter taste of salt from the peanuts backed into her throat. “If they turn me down, it takes the decision out of my hands anyway.”
When they turn me down.

A waitress stepped to the table and set down a bubbling platter of gooey, delicious carbs.

Indigo shoved aside the subject and her worry to take in a huge lungful of heaven. “Have I mentioned how much I love pizza?”

* * *

S
HE
WAS
REALLY
considering it. Sure, the bank might turn her down. Even if they said yes—he wasn't deluding himself—she might decide not to take it. But a restless sparking of possibility stirred in his chest, like the change in the air before an electrical storm. He felt antsy and hyperaware of his surroundings. Their heels, clicking the pavement on the hill to the cabin. The stirring of leaves and the smell of growing grapes came to him on the warm breeze, woven into the clean scent of her perfume.

God, he'd come to love that smell.

Her hand slipped into his. Lissette's had been tiny. It fit in his like a young girl's, making him feel protective, masculine. But Indigo's hand was long-fingered, slim and strong. More like his own. Equal to his own.

She'd make a great partner.
When he realized the voice in his head was referring to more than a job and a period much longer than an affair, his fingers clenched.

“What's the matter?” Indigo asked, her face at his shoulder only a pale blur in the dark.

“Nothing.” He forced the muscles of his hand to slacken. “I was just thinking that it's nice to be with someone who doesn't need to fill silence with chatter.”

She squeezed his hand, and they walked on.

He approached the thought more slowly this time.
Love? Is that what you're talking about?

Silence echoed back.
I wasn't referring to
your
chatter. A little help here.

Nothing.

They turned in at the path that led to Indigo's cabin porch. A warm light inside made the stirring curtains glow at the window. A long nose appeared in the crack. “Looks like you have a welcoming committee.” He took her elbow at the stairs.

She chuckled. “Yeah, Barney founded my fan club.”

He stepped in front of her. “But he's not the only member.” When he cupped her cheek, lifting her chin, she moved willingly into his embrace. Her arms twined around his neck and her hands up into his hair. He tasted the coffee they'd drunk on her lips, the sweetness of the night on her tongue. Her body molded to his—or maybe his did the molding. Regardless, the result felt strong, solid, somehow right. Her kiss was sweet, full and fine, like expensive port.

Until she whimpered.

The kiss morphed to the laughing burst of Moët & Chandon as bubbles shot through his blood to his head, leaving him dizzy. His tongue delved her depths. His cock was a steel rod, throbbing an insistent demand that matched his racing heartbeat.
Now. Now. Now.

The dog whined and scratched at the door.

Stop.

He broke the kiss and, hands on her upper arms, pushed her away. “Your first fan awaits.” He stepped back.

“What's wrong, Danovan?” She sounded as confused as he felt. “Is it me?”

He dropped his hands. “It's not you. It's just that us working together and...being together messes with my head sometimes.” He ran a hand through his hair. Mixing business and pleasure was a bomb that had destroyed his last life. “Look, I want you. That's obvious. But I've also asked you to put a lot of faith in me with the winery, and I know that's pretty scary for you. I don't ever want you to think that I used this—” he waved a hand, indicating them both “—used
us
, to influence your decision.”

She tilted her head, and only one side of her mouth lifted. “I can't decide if you're sweet or the most egotistical man I've ever met.”

Yeah, join the club.
He hadn't felt this conflicted, this unsure of himself since...well, ever. He just shrugged. “You are in my blood, Indigo Blue.” He ran a finger down her throat, to where the first button of her blouse halted his progress. “You make me burn.” After a long look, he made himself take another step away and turn. “Sleep well.”

He heard her open the door and murmur to the dog as he walked away.

Either he'd just done the most decent, noble thing ever, or the dumbest. His brain argued the former, his body the latter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

G
UTS
SHAKING
,
AND
HOPING
it didn't show, Indigo strode into the soaring-ceilinged icon that was the Silversafe Bank of Santa Maria. Her business heels clicked on black-veined marble as she tried to lock her shoulders back and surreptitiously tug down her skirt at the same time.

If he turns you down, the decision is made. If he approves it, you can still say no.

Halting before the desk of what the walnut-and-brass nameplate advertised as Vice President of Administration, she slapped on a stiff, but hopefully businesslike, smile. She shifted her briefcase and stuck out her hand to shake. The probably-a-secretary-in-spite-of-the-title lady on the other side of the desk looked startled, but after a moment, shook Indigo's outstretched hand.

“I have a two o'clock appointment with Craig Zimmer.” Her phone buzzed its incoming-text buzz. It was from Danovan.

Call me as soon as you can.

I'll call on my way out.

She stared down at the brown roots of the VP's blond hair as she checked her computer. “Ms. Blue, yes. I'll let Mr. Zimmer know you're here.”

Too fast, Indigo found herself on the other side of a huge kidney-shaped desk of the Senior Business Loan Officer, a fit, too-young-for-the-gray-hair man who looked like he played tennis at a country club in his off-hours. She swallowed and sat.

“What can I do for our most famous resident?” His smile held a business line, but his tone said “spoiled dilettante.”

Great, one of those.
The simpering Bernard was an example of one reaction to her past. This was the other—someone who looked at her like she was gum on his wingtip.
Strike one.

She held his gaze and pushed her shoulder blades closer together. “Hardly. My late husband was famous, not I.”

“I'm sorry for your loss.” His mouth displayed sorrow, but his eyes weren't buying it.

“You may or may not be aware, but I am the owner of The Tippling Widow Winery in Widow's Grove.”

“I am aware.”

“Well, we'd like to expand our operation. I'd like to buy grapes to double our crush.” She leaned down and flipped open the top of her briefcase. “This will of course require the purchase of capital equipment and labor to handle the increased production.” She lifted out her ammo—spreadsheets, colored pie charts and bar graphs. She'd tweaked Danovan's numbers to reflect a slightly less rosy view. She didn't want to oversell. If the banker didn't think this was a smart risk, that would be good enough for her. She handed the papers to Mr. Country Club. “You can see that to keep costs down, we'll purchase quality used equipment. I would also hire less experienced applicants who want to learn the business.”

Her phone buzzed again.

Call me. Now.

She couldn't. Her churning gut might be unreliable, but even she knew that this gas-filled bag of ego would be offended if she took a call. Or even texted back. Danovan had more experience to handle whatever the emergency was, anyway.

The executive studied the charts with squinting scrutiny, his lips pursed. After a few agonizing minutes, he looked up. “I wasn't aware that you were an experienced vintner, Ms. Blue.”

She squished the crickets partying in her stomach and folded her hands in her lap. “I'm not. Well, I wasn't. I'm what you'd call an apprentice vintner. Danovan DiCarlo is The Widow's manager. He's teaching me and is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the production facility.”

The creases in the banker's lips deepened. “Ah, Danovan DiCarlo.”

Strike two, from the look.
“Are you familiar with Mr. DiCarlo's expertise?”

He looked away. “I am familiar with Mr. DiCarlo.”

Which wasn't an answer to her question. At all.

Her blood flash-heated to a boil. She wouldn't sit here and listen to this judgmental ass, even if it meant losing the chance at a loan. “I'm aware that there are rumors being spread about Mr. DiCarlo by his former employer due to a personal disagreement on a non-work-related matter.” She grabbed her briefcase, stood, lifted her chin and tried for imperious. “I assure you, his expertise as a manager can be ascertained in our current financial statements, which are page twelve of the completed loan paperwork you have in your hand.”

He placed his hand on the paperwork and leaned back in his swivel chair. “I will review your application, then submit it to our loan committee along with my opinion, Ms. Blue. I should be able to get you an answer within the next few days.”

“Thank you.” She turned and sailed out of the office before he could offer her his hand, since she wasn't sure she wanted to shake it anyway. She unlocked her car and got in, then dialed Danovan's cell phone.

“DiCarlo,” he barked.

“Well, Silversafe Bank is probably a washout. I couldn't call until now. What's up?”

“Are you still in Santa Maria?”

“I just got out of the meeting with Mr. Country Club. Do you need anything at the store? I've got to—”

“Indigo, you'd better... Get off the road, dammit!”

The urgency in his tone twanged her nerves, sending vibrations to her gut. She heard car horns blaring in the background. “What's wrong? What happened?”

“I'm on my way to the vet. I think you'd better meet me there.”

“Oh no! What's wrong with Barney?” Hearing the surge of his car engine, her heartbeat surged to match it. “Which vet?”
Oh God, not Barney. I can't lose him, too.
Slamming the door, she started her car.

“Ynez Valley Vet Clinic, outside of town. You know where it is?”

She hit the speaker button, tossed the phone onto the seat next to her, rammed the car into gear and floored it. “I'll find it. What happened? Is he okay?”

“He's...just hurry, okay?”
Click
.

Shattering all speed limits and swearing at pokey law-abiders, she listened to the clock ticking in her head and thoughts of ever-increasing disastrous scenarios, all starring Barney.

Arriving at the clinic, she might have damaged the transmission, throwing the car into Park before it stopped. While it still rocked, she was out and running for the glass door of what looked like a doctor's office from the '60s. Large aluminum-framed windows looked into a reception area sparsely populated with owners and pets. Barreling through the door, she ran to the Formica-clad desk. “Barney—my dog. A bassett? Where is he?” She stopped, unable to get enough air past the blockage in her throat to say more.

The wide-eyed teen receptionist pointed to a door, and Indigo slammed through it to a hallway. She had to slow to look in the small windows of the doors on either side. In the second on the left, she recognized Danovan's broad shoulders leaning over an examining table. But not the red-haired man across from him.

She stood frozen, hand on the door, unable to push it open to a future she couldn't face.

Danovan shifted, revealing a long, brown ear. A grief-tipped blade sliced her chest.
You have to be there for Barney.
The door felt weighted with lead when she pushed it with a shaking hand.

“We won't know—” The young vet looked up.

Indigo took the two steps to the spotlighted table where an IV line snaked down... A sob coughed from her chest.

Wet with sweat, a too-still Barney lay, eyes closed, foamed saliva drying on his muzzle.

“What happened?” She'd pushed out air hard enough to allow her to shout, but all that came out was a breathy whisper.

Danovan ran fingers over Barn's slicked flank. His eyes were bottomless—haunted.

She looked to the vet. “Is he going to be all right?” Then wanted to snatch the words back.
Why ask if you can't handle the answer?

The vet fiddled with the stopcock on the IV. “The next two hours will tell. This should flush some of the poison—”

“Poison?” She whipped her head to Danovan. “What happened?”

“I was on the tractor, spraying fungicide for black rot—”

“Why? That's my job!”

He glanced at her, then away, as if unable to look at her hurt. “You were at the bank. I wanted to do something to help you. He must have been following the tractor.”

She strained to hear past a gale of panic.

He stroked Barney's ear. “I turned at the end of a row, and saw him...” He scrubbed a hand over his eyes as if he could erase the vision from his brain. “It never occurred to me that he'd follow me.”

In a blinding flash, molten anger spattered her guts. “Get away from my dog!” She slapped at Danovan's arm. “You never liked him!” She put her hands on Danovan's chest and pushed. He took a startled step back. Pain burned through her guts to her core. It was everywhere. She had to get away from it. “You've killed my dog!” She followed him, slapping at his chest.

Danovan stood, hands clenched at his sides, taking it.

“Hey, stop now.” The vet stepped around the table and put a hand on her arm. “If he hadn't gotten here as fast as he did, your dog
would
be dead. The important thing now is Barney. Let's focus on him. Okay?”

The anger rushed out of the holes it burned in the bottom of her feet. All her energy went with it. Jesus. What had she said? She stepped back to the table, leaned her hands on the edge and tried to stop breathing like a buffalo. She could barely see the rise and fall of the dog's shallow breaths.
Oh, God,
Barney.
When the cool plastic of a chair touched the backs of her knees, she released her grip.

Exposed by the surgeon's light, Barney looked so vulnerable. She dropped her chin on her fist on the table. She stroked a finger over the freckles on Barney's muzzle, hoping for a twitch that didn't come. “I'm sorry to freak out. It's just that Barn is all I have left of my husband.” She glanced up at the doctor. “Please. I can't lose him.”

“This should counteract the pesticide, providing he didn't ingest too much. We just have to give it time.” He glanced at Danovan. “I have other patients. If you two are okay...”

“We're fine, Doc. Go ahead.” The weight of Danovan's hand dropped onto her shoulder.

She shrugged it off. “I'd rather be alone.”

The door opened and closed.

She took Barney's oversized foot in her fingers, stroking it. “You have to get better, Barn.” She waited a moment for the aching tide to recede from her throat and behind her eyes. “It's you and me, bud, remember? Dad's—” The ache surged. “—gone.” It came out strangled and wet. “We have to...” She took a breath. “Oh please, Barn. Don't leave me, too.” She laid her head on the table and put her arms around as much of her dog as she could reach as the tide swamped her.

Sometime later, the door clicked open behind her. She palmed her eyes but didn't turn.

“I'm not leaving.” Danovan's deep voice came from behind her. “I understand what Barney means to you. If you're not ready to leave Harry behind, I understand that too. But I'm not leaving you alone. Not now.”

She felt blindly for his hand, took it and squeezed. “I didn't mean what I said. I just went crazy...”

He slid a chair next to her and sat. “Forget it. It's a natural reaction.”

She turned her head, and the ruin on his face jerked her from selfishness.
That same thing happened to him after Esperanza died.
In their grief, the Boldens had blamed him, too. “Oh, God, Danovan. I'm so sorry.”

“I'm sorry, too.” He took a deep breath. “Look, I know this isn't the time, but I have to say it. I know you're not ready to close that door...to leave Harry behind.” The weight of sorrow was heavy on his face, adding years. “And that's okay. I just want you to know that I'm here, Indigo. As a friend, if that's all you can handle right now.”

“But Harry
is
gone.” She shook her head slowly. “See, that's the thing about denial. You can't live there forever. Whether I want it to or not, the sun keeps coming up every morning, carrying me further and further away from him.” She ran a finger down Barney's ear. “All I can do is try to adjust to that receding distance every day. I'm starting to think that's how grief works. Tiny steps, every day. You can't speed them up, and you can't slow them down.”

“I
hate
that.” He dropped his chin on his fist on the edge of the table.

“Me, too.” She put an arm around his shoulders and they sat in silence, watching Barney breathe.